Sea anchors as conventionally known is a device or instrument that is attached to a ship or other vessel by a cable and that being cast overboard lays hold of the earth by a fluke or hook and thus holds the vessel in a particular place or desired location. Sea anchors have been modified for use as devices for assisting in reducing undesired drifting in rough waters and to otherwise stabilize a small vessel such as a raft's motion. As hereinafter referred to, sea anchors or anchors refer to such modified forms of anchors. Such sea anchors utilize a flexible sheet that has spaced peripheral portions connected by ropes to a common mooring line from a raft to define a concavity such as a parachute, chute or an opened umbrella when deployed in water. Such concavity may be considered cup-shaped or saucer shaped. The mooring line's connection to the raft is generally via a loop patch or to multiple points on the raft which could in turn also be connected to the bottom of such rafts. In severe sea conditions, the loads exerted on the sea anchor can break the sea anchor line or tear the attachment points from the raft which could cause major damage to the raft resulting in raft flooding and possible loss of inflation chambers.
One alternative to this is to detach or release the anchor's connection to the raft to eliminate the excessive forces which would otherwise subject the raft to tears. A further alternative to releasing an anchor is to pull the anchor in and thence to deploy it when conditions permit. 0f particular difficulty in retrieving or pulling in anchors is that this must be done under abnormal weather conditions which make such retrieving dangerous. It is an object of this invention to provide means for automatically nullifying the effect of an anchor and its function on the occurrence of adverse forces or conditions. Such automatic means may be made re-settable upon termination of the adverse forces and the sea anchor can be redeployed. The present invention thus prevents the raft from tearing or being damaged by collapsing the sea anchor before loads become greater than the designed loads. The sea anchor of the present invention even in the collapsed condition will continue to prevent drift even in the collapsed position, however such sea anchor will be acting less efficiently, but loads will be less. Such action is a better alternative to the need or requirement of pulling the sea anchor out of the water under adverse conditions. Of particular importance is that such redeployable sea anchor can be made from standard hardware which will not require any maintenance.
These and other objects and advantages will appear more fully in the following detailed description when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings.